People | Passion | Platforms

Posterity

For the longest time, my sentence description for what I do is ‘translate’

Tech Speak to Business Speak.

Sales Speak to Marketing Speak.

English Speak To American Speak.

Corporate Speak to Customer Speak.

I didn’t start that way … but when I look back at what I have done and attempt to explain what some would consider to be an eclectic career – that is the common thread. Back in 2012 I wrote this.

I was prompted to write this as I was thinking today about a dialogue I had with a good friend of mine around the People First initiative … dialogue modified to make sense out of context …

ME: I am thinking that IF People First is focussing on the future present of work …. (since ALL language you read is really about impact on corporations and society – not really on the individual), then one aspect I want to be talked about is IF you are an individual – what is the language YOU should use?

For example …. I am not ‘talent’. You are not going to ‘acquire me’, so why does a corporation talk about ‘talent acquisition’. On the flip side – I have mobility and can move around and YOU dear corporation have to jump to this piper, who is playing my tune.

Make sense ?

Friend: Makes sense.

I don’t frame it as a ‘corporate and you’ thing.

I frame it as an understanding, sense making and modelling thing where the refreshed and healthier models can live in various contexts.

ME: I frame it as the interface / intersection where the translation occurs. That is where I hang out, always have done – which in turn plays to …

“ an understanding, sense making and modelling thing where the refreshed and healthier models can live in various contexts.”

I met someone the other day and having looked over their website, I happened to mention that the RSS feed from the site’s blog was called ‘RSS Feed’ – and not something useful like ‘John’s RSS Feed For All Things Amazing’ …..

The reply :

“It’s so funny when you mentioned the RSS feed – I didn’t know people still did that so I’ll definitely look into it.”

This person strikes me as very bolted into the world of business and tech, definitely switched on to the social media circus circuit … and her response is all too typical of what I hear from so many people. Which in turn means that I think it is one of the most serious issues we face today.

Surely you jest Mr. Philpin? I do not ….

(Consider the news that emerged over the weekend that Facebook 'unknowingly' sold advertising to Russian Troll Farms ..
"The ads -- both traditional advertisements and sponsored posts -- were intended to sow discord among the American electorate by amplifying "divisive social and political messages," Stamos said. These ranged from "LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights."
Allow that to sink in for a moment - and I know you would never be caught out by such obvious false influences .... except you are. We all are. All the time. That is why the art of the con is alive and well.
And no, RSS doesn't fix that all by itself - but it sure does help.

I wrote a long reply to my new friend about why RSS was important … and when it was finished, decided not to send it, but rather turn it into a blog post and just send the link, because it is something I come across a lot. This article is a personal position on RSS, a recognition that it needs to get easier and a plea that really – if you want news – getting it from your Social Feeds is not a good idea. Continue reading →

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if, as Boas famously claimed, the Eskimos have dozens of words for “snow,” then in an emerging knowledge work society, we should have more than a handful of words to describe the mental efforts on which, more and more, our livelihoods depend.

Needless to say, I agree completely with the sentiments.

I am not an advocate of never changing language – but I do like it to be used correctly. e.g. (or ‘i.e.’ as too many people write), the use of ‘e.g.’

We hope to achieve some kind of immortality through our work. The reality is that after we’re done creating, it’s all largely useless. The legacy we try to create is never what we actually create. Our ambition is much greater than the accomplishment.

I am not going to waste my time rekeying what he said. It’s not worth my time. Its not even worth my time to relisten to what he said. He is wrong. He is not just wrong because I disagree with him, he is wrong because of the massive over simplification he is making about the situation. He also weakens his argument by introduces a totally unconnected piece of crap at the end of the piece (but that is a different story.)

I heard it and was going to ignore it, but then two days later he produced this …

It’s an uphill battle because the two sides are often speaking different languages. Impressions, amplification, reach, true reach, audience, fans, followers and engagement are not as clearly defined to everyone as they may be to those of you reading this paper. It’s like having dinner with a bunch of people in the health care industry who are talking HCAHPS, HIPAA requirements and ACOs — the details are lost in translation, and if you were asked to remember what you heard the next day, you’d be S.O.L.

The source of the quote above doesn’t matter. what matters is over and over again how we fail to understand who we are talking to and how they are observing.